Unlicensed Armory

Unlicensed Armory

[NEW TEXT] Discard 1, [E]: Choose a friendly unit. The next time it would die this turn, you may pay [C] to heal it, exhaust it, and recall it instead. (Send it to base. This isn't a move.)

[OLD TEXT] Discard 1, [E]: Choose a friendly unit. The next time it dies this turn, you may pay [C] to recall it exhausted instead. (Send it to base. This isn't a move.)

Ekko and Unlicensed Armory

What happens when I play Ekko, Boy Who Shattered Time's activated ability, play a unit, and then play Unlicensed Armoy's activated ability? Will the unit be killed on my next turn?

Your unit's death from its triggered ability will be replaced by Unlicensed Armory. Although the unit has the text "Kill me at end of turn." appended to it, that text is synonymous with "Kill me at the end of this turn." On subsequent turns, it will not trigger.

When "at end of turn" appears on card text, it is used synonymously with "at the end of this turn." Although granting that text to a unit is strange, it isn't outside the bounds of possibility. If the unit remains on the board after the triggered ability resolves, the condition for its ability to trigger will no longer be able to be fulfilled, so it will not trigger again. If the unit changes zones to or from a non-board zone prior to the triggered ability triggering, all of its temporary modifications-including this granted text-will be removed. As such, the ability will no longer exist to trigger.

Relevant rules: 359.3.e.16., 124.1.

Q: What happens if I use an effect like Unlicensed Armory to prevent the death of the friendly unit I chose to kill with Baited Hook?

Baited Hook kills a unit, then uses information about "the killed unit." If you prevent that unit's death, there's no killed unit, so Baited Hook can't evaluate its Might. As a result, the check for the Might of the "killed unit" returns a null value, and you're not able to play any unit. If the unit is killed before the ability of Baited Hook resolves, the outcome is the same.

Q: When I replace a unit's death with a card like Unlicensed Armory, does damage on the unit stay? If the unit died to lethal damage, doesn't it just die again?

The intent behind these four cards is to save your unit from dying, whether it died due to direct kill like Hidden Blade or due to lethal damage. To better communicate this, these cards will receive updated wordings. Two of them, Highlander (from the Proving Grounds boxed set) and Unlicensed Armory, have straightforward fixes, adding "heal" and listing "exhaust" and "recall" as separate actions.

Unlicensed Armory

Discard 1, [E]: Choose a friendly unit. The next time it would die this turn, you may pay [C] to heal it, exhaust it, and recall it instead. (Send it to base. This isn't a move.)

Zhonya's Hourglass also has a slightly updated wording making it clearer that its ability applies any time a friendly unit dies, not just on the turn you play it.

Yes. You can save any unit that meets the description in the replacement ability's condition. For Highlander and Unlicensed Armory, that's any friendly unit. The actions you perform on that unit as a replacement are like the effects of a spell or ability; you'll do as much as you can: heal the unit (if it's damaged), exhaust it (if it's ready), and recall it (if it's somewhere other than its base). And yes, you exhaust the unit even if you don't recall it; as per the above wordings, we've changed the "recall it exhausted" language to make that clearer.

This includes "direct kill" spells you control like Hidden Blade. It also includes damage spells like Void Seeker, provided they mark lethal damage on the unit that immediately causes it to die. In all cases, the unit has to actually die-if that death is replaced by a card like Unlicensed Armory, then you didn't kill a unit with a spell.